


Flight Of The Birds

by burgerkhal



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-15
Updated: 2012-03-15
Packaged: 2017-11-02 00:00:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/362752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burgerkhal/pseuds/burgerkhal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sebastian Moran encounters John Watson on the street. He knows John, though John doesn’t know him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flight Of The Birds

**Author's Note:**

> EERRRRRRR, I haven’t written fanfic in ages, so I feel unsure about the length and the overall theme. Please do comment!

It started with a blow of cold wind on the rooftop of St. Bartholomew's hospital, and scattered tip-taps of rain. The slurring in my tongue manifested the true terror running through my veins and the tiny river of blood I stepped into made me retreat back to the door. James Moriarty had killed himself, and I was slowly starting to disintegrate, the faint voice of yesterday screaming louder than the ghost of a bullet. Crawling over my skin and through my ears, I stood listening.

\------

_Do you want more than anatomy? Then look at me! Truly look at me with that face. Because every time you look away with your empty eyes, the feathers that you ruffled fall down my path and I can't fly anymore. You have me imprisoned James!_

Those were the last words between James and I. We had a domestic a few hours before I ran for my work equipment. He smiled his cynical smile and whispered something I couldn't understand at the moment, before stealing a teethy kiss that left my lower lip buzzing and dripping a few spots of blood on my newest satin shirt. Now that I think about it, he was leaving a memory behind. The bastard was territorial like that.

There was absolutely no sex between us. James preserved his energies and vented often through bouts of contained anger. Although he repressed most of his desires, he found it entertaining to have me sit naked on a stool, whipping at the ribs when a plan or client failed to fulfill his criminal expectations. Nudity didn't excite him, it was rather the flinching of a caged bird haunted by the shadow of a cat. Your pain is my pleasure, he repeated in a silky voice that paced the room. Remember that Sebastian.

\-----

The gunshot ringing above London was deafening to my ears, and quickly trying to invade me and set free my most vicious nightmares. I kept hoping the bullet was in Sherlock's body, but as soon as I saw him step to the ledge, a single tear rolled through my face. A flock of pigeons roused me to reality, to point my steady rifle at the detective's doctor. That was all the sadness I was allowed to have towards Moriarty's death because, faithful to the end, I was still on job duty.

Framing the pretty skull of the man in the rifle's visor, I awaited. Below, on the streets, death haunted, wondering who she'd embrace. Would it be Sherlock Holmes? Would it be his doctor? I wasn't savouring the wait as much as I thought I would. I needed the business to end as swiftly as it could be allowed. Where the bloody fucks was Moriarty? He was supposed to signal the death of John Watson, no matter the outcome with Sherlock. The sound of the bullet and the obvious result kept being erased every time I focused back.

Finally, the intended "fraud" opened his wings, a suicidal peregrine falcon, crashing through the air and hastily kissing the pavement. Rushing through the confusion, I decidedly packed the rifle away, left the building guarding only my shadow and climbed the stairs to the damned hospital's rooftop.

On the verge of shattering the door at the top of the flight with the impulse I carried, I pushed it with a kick. The initial drizzle of faint rain was already spreading it out. Spreading the blood of James Moriarty.

\-----

I kept going back to 221B Baker Street, to spy on the doctor. I hated him, wanted to strangle him with all the strength I had in me, for as logical as I tried to be, he was the cause and effect of the despair I carried within. Even his steps backwards regarding his limp, his hidden sadness, made me absolutely content. If I was to suffer, so would he.

Crossed paths purposely with him on many occasions. When he went to grab a bite I bumped into his shoulder. Almost tripped him several times, and I say almost because I kept holding back. Sometimes his puzzled expression thought he had seen me before, other times he stood where we had grazed and a light whimper escaped his lips. Enough poison to feed me for a while.

Then there were the months where he couldn't hold a job for over a week. Scattering his friendships, and abandoning most of them, he'd visit the stone slab of Sherlock Holmes, staying the night with only two paper cups of tea and a blanket. Slowly turning into a ghost, he grew delicate, malnourished and sleepless. No apparent place to drift towards comfort, it seemed.

I've always had and honored the conception of home being a person, rather than a place. Home isn't where the heart is. Home is the relief after the exhausting travels, the rain and pouring sun on the windowsills of London, where Moriarty called me often. Home is who your heart is. Home is who my heart was. Home for John Watson stopped being 221B, and remained now the grave of the consulting detective.

I was merely a raven, waiting for him to wear down to the point I could vanish him, and no one would remember his face or his voice. I cawed at his every trip and fall, yet he rose. The memories confessed in Sherlock's grave pulled him upwards, opposed to what James non-existence did to me. I put out the cigarette and left the cemetery, determined to finish John Watson, out of jealousy, misery and compassion.

\-----

Entering the coffee shop where John Watson took his usual Darjeeling double shot tea was not a silent affair. A bell rang atop my head, a cheery waitress guided me to my seat with unstoppable yammering, and the seat, a squeaking trapped mouse. There I was, with enough time and in red-hot closeness of the gentle doctor, to attempt the more subtle forms of killing. Delectable venoms and other techniques James had taught me fluttered with wispy thin voices.

_Have I seen you before?_ The voice caught my attention. He had finally recognized my face, but I managed wrapping a quick excuse around my lips. _Surely you have me mistaken, I have a very common face, or so I'm told._

James used to say it, best way to confuse oneself among the crowd is being "common", but also staying as far as the maximum shooting distance would permit. I made the mistake of involving my confusion and anger, drawing me nearer to the doctor. The conversation continued softly from his part as I kicked myself for a dashing failure. Suddenly five words woke me: _So, who have you lost?_

_It's just that you have those eyes._ He said, the eyes of a lonely toddler. _No one special, just an employer I was starting to get along with_ , I tried to mutter under my breath. Chuckling after putting down his cup, he dismissed the employer idea that you wouldn't feel utterly discouraged in life by the loss of someone you kept a business relationship with. _I certainly don't manage well with the cold ones, anyway_ , he said.

_Friends protect you in a way they find adequate at the moment, though you try pushing the pieces of the puzzle in the wrong direction. They never intend to leave you, but they have sometimes, voluntarily or unwillingly, to break your heart. Hurting me, seemed a particular specialty of his, in our lonely differences. But sometimes friends do that._

He continued with bits and pieces of commentary, before sighing heavily: _He was mine, and I was perhaps his only one._

_You're mine_. That was what James had said months ago before we parted. An irrepressible mourning came over me. The withheld anger, the insurmountable sadness, a flood of emotions mismatched against my lack of expression, that I had to excuse myself for a second. In the single bathroom stall, I begged for death in silence, to be joined again in Hell with the only man crazy enough to have a betrayer of the code of the Royal Army by his side.

Coming back from the stall, John Watson was gone, but as the cashier pointed out, he payed in advance for my drink and left a note that read the following:

_Listen mate, I know how it feels. I've been through this stage a long time already. To lose someone is not an easy thing, and hard as you try these people will cling to you. You'll detach and cherish at your own pace. Meanwhile, have a warm drink, and try to stay above and out of the mud._

Honesty in such common lines shortly made me gasp for bit of air. Nervously clasping for a cigarette, drifting towards the streets, I made my way to the flat I used to rent before it all fell. Mad genius had turned us upside-down, changed us for the better (or the worse). Pangs of anxiety and guilt washed over my face, thankful for not having killed this noble man. And suddenly, then and there, in a quaint little doorstep I understood what forgiveness was in the eyes of a fellow soldier.

I was flying again. Alone, but flying.


End file.
